When is my garlic ready to harvest?

Understanding which garlic sub group your variety you have planted comes from is very important. This will dictate if your garlic is to be harvested early, mid way or later in the season. 

In addition to that, you will also need to know if your garlic type is a hardneck or softneck type. So if you don't know the garlic sub group your garlic comes from, you can at least identify if it is a hardneck or softneck type.

The rule of thumb is:Strongly bolting hardneck - grown in cooler climates, always produce a scape.Weakly bolting hardneck - will produce a scape in cooler climates only, and may not produce a scape if grown in a warmer climate.Softneck - do not produce scapes at all, may produce bulbils within the stem of the garlic just above the bulb.

Understanding the above botanical influences will give you an indication of which time period you will be ready to harvest your garlic based on seasonal outcomes that affect each type of garlic sub group. So harvest each year will be slightly adjusted, there is no one date that harvest should be done on specifically.

The most important rule to identify if your garlic is ready for harvest for hardneck and softneck garlic types is to have visual checks of your garlic and selectively harvest those that are ready bsed on the below rules.

• Hardneck garlic - 4.5 green leaves REMAINING
• Softneck garlic (including elephant garlic) - 6 green leaves REMAINING

Further reading on garlic sub group info and why the green leaves remaining rule is so important........(these articles to come soon).